The Armour Archive

Im trying to make wooden swords sound less like wood and more like a metal sword. Any ideas?

sell them and use the money to buy metal swords!

barring the selling of the (which i find most likely the best bet) perhaps beveling out a small opening and putting a bead of wire along the striking edge?

curiously why do yo uwant metal sound without the actual metal blade?

Its for a play. They were not really excited with kids waving around metal swords.

Maybe try to convince them to use aluminum weapons. They are just as expensive as the cheaper steel ones but are lighter. The only way to do what you want to do with the wasters would be to put something metal on the swords themselves. Thus defeating the purpose of what they want to avoid. You could try to have sound effects from off stage or from a sound track but that is VERY hard to do with live theatre. Another idea would be to have a loud musical score that would overlap all the sounds of the battle. That is done in alot of films (especially during dramatic slow mo sequences) where all you hear is the music. Just a few ideas.

AllenJ just about stole my thoughts. Why not try piping in sound effects? You could use the melee sounds from just about any motion picture and get what you're looking for...at least in theory.

A

if this is for a school use thing i'm pretty sure your going to have to produce the effects with live steel behind the curtain or just plain not have it(if there is a score i guess you could go that route as well) most institutions aren't gonna be too keen on any metal being swung let alone wood but since you haven't brought the radar down that wood can cause just as mutch damage as blunted metal i'd leave well enough alone. i guess if you are tellented enough to major in game boy you could argue it the other way and con them into the aluminum sword route but i immagine if your b.s. skills aren''t properlly honed this might end up in loosing all active swordplay.

Just a thought,
Mabye you could put a small strip of metal running down the side, just enough to mkae sound but not actually dangerous. For example look at the side of a wooden ruler you could do it just like that.

good luck!
JJ

It won't work too much, as wood will absorb most of the vibrations..

Hmmm. Go have a talk with the gym teacher. See if you can't get some old or used lacrosse sticks. Alluminum or titanium sticks should work. Strip the paint or spray-paint silver. Add gorilla glue or similar to inside of tip and shove tip into block of styrofoam to fill the end. Mount a cross and pomel weight.

Light durable "sporting equipment" = not a weapon in the eyes of the school. They will sound like metal on metal. That sound was unmistakeable when a swipe hit stick rather than padded body. Plus the stage lights should glint nicely off the octagonal reflective surfaces.

You could do almost the same by squashing pipe conduit but that would be hardware and not "sporting equipment".

The scary part about the zero tollerance towards weapons policy of most schools is that they fail to recognize how many blunt and sharp improvised weapons are already within reach. Remember those clear plastic BIC pens? They wern't allowed in courtrooms because they snap off sharp and can be used as a weapon.

Good luck,
Sean

just sit down with the drama teacher or whoever is the supervising person who tells you what you can and cant do and then work your way to what you want through controling the conversation.

its a tried and tested way of getting what you want, hey i did it last year in colage when i had to do the coriography for "the scarlet pimpernell" i even got the drama department to commision me to make two raipers for them!
getting paid by the school is a great feeling....

eldana the not so meek